When Shaune Eldred and her husband began looking for a retirement home a few years ago, they had a list of what they wanted.

“We wanted an excellent lake view from the majority of rooms,” Eldred said.

“We wanted to be very close to the lake. We wanted to be close to Kelowna, but not in it, preferably close to the airport. We wanted a larger lot than we could find in the city, but we didn’t want to go over an acre. And we wanted a fairly flat building site.”

With help from a real-estate agent, Eldred and her husband Revett — entrepreneurs from Calgary who sold their last business in June 2012 — found what they were looking for on the shores of Lake Okanagan.

Less than a half-hour from Kelowna, Lakestone is a 550-acre master-planned development on a hillside surrounded by pine trees, granite outcrops and walking trails.

Homesites start at $195,000. Sixty per cent are priced under $300,000.

“What we’re selling is the opportunity to build your dream home in the Okanagan,” said Jason Koverchuk, Lakestone director of sales and marketing.

“So when someone comes out here and says, ‘I love this location, this is the community for me, let’s find a homesite,’ we can connect them with a builder we think suits their personality.”

There is a “viewing suite” that gives prospective buyers a look at the architectural possibilities of the site.

The first release of homesites is at the water’s edge.

Other sites will be on higher elevations.

“We’re starting at the water’s edge and working our way up the hill into the highlands,” Koverchuk said.

“Some of the best lake views are being released first. The prices are really good and people are jumping all over that. I’ve talked to people saying we’ve been looking from five to seven years for something like Lakestone.”

Just over half of the 36 homesites up for pre-sale have been sold.

They are part of the Waterside neighbourhood of 103 homes, all of which will have a view of the lake.

“We realize the importance of putting in your amenities early on,” Koverchuk said.

The Lake Club will include an outdoor pool, hot tubs, fitness centre, outdoor kitchen and storage space for kayaks and other water toys.

“You’ll have somewhere to put your paddleboard,” Koverchuk said. “This just reinforces that this is all about the lake.”

Other master-planned communities in the Okanagan are built around golf or proximity to urban centres, Koverchuk says, but Lakestone is the only one with this proximity to the lake.

“Being on the lake, whether you get up early to go fishing or you go for a sunset cruise in your boat, being able to walk down to the water’s edge from your home in a new master-planned community — there’s nothing else like it.”

Site-owners have two years to start building. “You don’t have to rush in. Most people have a house they need to sell first.” There are some construction guidelines to follow, to “maintain the integrity of the neighbourhood,” he said.

Shaune Eldred says that she and her husband have built their dream home at Lakestone.

“We really lucked into a builder,” she said. The Eldreds also met with a few architects to make sure they found one who could design the house to their specifications.

Completed in early September of this year, it’s a two-bedroom house with two offices and two-and-a-half baths. Eldred says it cost them a little over $2 million.

They lived on site in their motorhome while the house was being built.

“It’s been designed so it follows the lot exactly, so there are basically four levels in the house, plus a basement, with very minimal amounts of stairs between each of the levels.”

Eldred says that she and her husband plan on living there year-round.

They had been looking for something like Lakestone about seven years ago, but gave up. They went sailing and travelled in their motorhome, then returned to Calgary and started another business.

They started looking again in October 2011.

With Lakestone, “I flew up on a Sunday, we made an offer on Monday and closed on Wednesday,” Eldred said.

“As much as anything, we were sick of the long winters in Calgary. It’s a great place to do business but we’re semi-retired now. We wanted to get away to do that. We could have purchased a place in Arizona, but we decided we wanted something different. The weather here is certainly appealing. You still have all of your seasons, but a much longer, warmer summer. And the lake is very attractive.”

It doesn’t hurt that they’re in B.C. wine country, either. “We’re already members of the Grey Monk Wine Club,” she said.

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